Full transcript
The Shadow Epoch, Dendar the Night Serpent
In an age before time known as the Shadow Epoch, the Elder Gods, led by Ouroboros the World Serpent, fought against the primordials for dominion over the worlds. Among all the worlds in creation, one shown brightest, Toril, a magnificent blue jewel sparkled with potential. Within Toril’s single great ocean, primitive life struggled into existence. This blue age came to an end when a sinister primordial known as Dendar the Night Serpent, one of the elder eternal evils of the Outer Planes, snatched Toril’s sun from the sky.
Dendar came into existence, shortly after the first being of the realm slept and had a nightmare. Since her creation, Dendar has been devouring the nightmares of mortals, gathering them in her gullet where they swim in a miasma of fear and hatred. Toril was plunged into an age of darkness after Dendar swallowed the sun. Temperatures plummeted and most life on the planet became extinct. The tide of the Shadow Epoch was turned when the primordials were betrayed by one of their own. The primordial Ubtao assisted the Elder Gods in slaying, imprisoning, or driving away the primordials, earning him the title Ubtao the Deceiver. Eons past before sunlight warmed the world once more and life returned to Toril.
However, Savras the All-Seeing, Deity of Divination, fortold that when the doom of Toril arrives, Dendar the Night Serpent will slither forth through a magical portal beneath the Peaks of Flame and swallow the sun once more. The Peaks of Flame are a chain of three volcanoes which dominate a southern peninsula of Toril. Beneath one of these volcanoes stands a gigantic iron door that leads directly to the Fugue Plane, the Realm of the Dead. Dendar now roams in the Fugue Plane, devouring the nightmares of the living, looking forward to the day when she has collected enough of the fears of mortals to initiate the end of the world.
Ubtao in Chult and Mezro
Among the Pantheons, the deities debated on the preparation for Savras’s prophecy. Ubtao rose above the petty squabbling, volunteering to serve as sentinel in exchange for exclusive dominion over the land surrounding his post. The deities eagerly agreed, relieved to hand off a problem that might take eons to unfold, and so Ubtao came to the southern peninsula. Because of this ancient pact, other Pantheons never extended into Ubtao’s fiefdom. Upon arriving at his station, Ubtao set about creating his world.
Rivers carved through stone, jungles erupted with life, and the peninsula bloomed into a vibrant and lush paradise of Chult. Ubtao populated his creation with humans, dinosaurs, and other creatures. The Tabaxi, the predominant human tribe of Chult, venerated Ubtao as their primary deity and revered the dinosaurs as the sacred children of Ubtao. At the heart of the Jungles of Chult, Ubtao founded the city of Mezro. At Mezro’s heart stood the Temple of Ubtao, where he sat in judgment.
Seven of his chosen, known as “barae”, were granted miraculous powers and tasked with running the city. Mezro was to be the place where all the people of Chult could learn how to pass through the maze of life, how to best reach the heart of all, and how to discover the true nature of the world. But Mezro became something else entirely. The Tabaxi treated Ubtao like a household god. Its people approached Ubtao not with wisdom-seeking, but with the most insignificant of problems like petty disputes and daily trivialities.
Ubtao had created the labyrinth of earthly life to teach how to best pass through the maze. He would not destroy the everyday trials that were its walls. There finally came a day when Ubtao said, “If the people wish to cry and complain rather than listen to my wisdom, then so be it. I will leave them to wander the maze of life without my guidance.” Ubtao returned to the sky and refused to speak to his followers until they had completed their journeys through the maze of life.
Guardianship of Mezro fell to the barae, who were now the only souls blessed with his divine powers. In truth, the act of creating the Jungles of Chult fundamentally distanced Ubtao from Chult’s mortal inhabitants. To bridge this chasm, Ubtao imbued a portion of his essence in the lands of Chult. Into the rivers and the animal life. These fragments of Ubtao’s being became countless minor nature spirits, through which he was able to connect again on a basic level with the mortals he watched over. But this leaves him little time to directly interact with his followers.
Eshowdow the Devourer of Honor, Courage, and Nobility
The most influential tribe in Chult was the Tabaxi, but nearly as powerful and numerous was the Eshowe. In a time after the rise of Mezro, a bloody war between the Tabaxi and the Eshowe raged across Chult for nearly 300 years. In the final battle of that civil war, the Eshowe unleashed an ancient evil in a valley deep in the jungles. A dark primeval essence of Ubtao freed unexpectedly during Ubtao’s fragmentation that coalesced into a separate being.
Long suppressed by Ubtao and buried beneath the jungle floor, this being was a twisted parody of all that Ubtao stands for. It strives to nullify what Ubtao created and feast on the destruction of courage, honor, and nobility. The Shadow Giant, as the Eshowe named it, burned with hatred for Ubtao and immediately attacked Mezro. It nearly destroyed the great city before the barae and defenders finally managed to repulse his devastating assault. Thwarted at Mezro, the Shadow Giant turned his fury on the Eshowe who had summoned him, nearly wiping them out in a genocidal rampage.
The Tabaxi named the dark spirit Eshowdow, or Shadow of the Eshowe. His fury spent, Eshowdow retreated to the darkness to nurse his wounds and plot his revenge. The surviving Eshowe took refuge in the Valley of Lost Honor, the same valley in which Eshowdow was unearthed. Eshowdow twisted Eshowe legends to blame Ubtao for their tribe’s near extinction. Centuries of cowering under Eshowdow twisted the once proud Eshowe into a race of lurking shadows, a depraved cult whose hatred feed and strengthen Eshowdow.
It took Eshowdow centuries of furtive assaults against the Tabaxi to realize that Ubtao was incapable of retaliating against Eshowdow, his own shadow. But the Devourer of Honor, Courage, and Nobility couldn’t emerge from his jungle refuge, such was his cowardice.
Ras Nsi
Among the original seven barae was a powerful and amoral protector of Mezro named Ras Nsi. Perhaps the mightiest of the barae, he has the god-given power to raise and command any dead human, demihuman, or dinosaur in Chult. In the aftermath of the civil war, Ras Nsi pursued the defeated Eshowe forces. Obsessed with their total annihilation, he raised an army of undead and brutally slaughtered almost every Eshowe in Chult in a decade-long campaign. Horrified by the genocide, the other barae banished him from Mezro, but Ras Nsi never abandoned his twisted devotion to Mezro or Ubtao.
He lived in the jungle with his army of undead, waiting to serve his beloved city again. As he waited for some disaster to arise in Mezro that will force the barae to call him back, Ras Nsi built an empire in the jungle based on trade with the North. He accumulated vast wealth as gift to Mezro on his return. His patience broke when King Osaw opened Mezro to outside trade. He was enraged by the opening of Mezro to outsiders. Determined to save Mezro, he attacked with his undead army to conquer Mezro and drive away the outlanders.
Ras Nsi and his undead legion were defeated and driven back into the jungles. Before he could organize another attack, Mezro was destroyed by the Spellplague, or so it seemed. In truth, the barae magically transported the city to a demiplane, away from the Spellplague and Ras Nsi. Empty ruins were left behind to create the impression that Mezro had been destroyed. No one knows if and when Mezro will return. Ras Nsi lost his god-given command over the undead with the disappearance of Mezro. His undead army scattered and spread through the Jungles of Chult like a blight. Bitter over his loss of power, Ras Nsi withdrew to the city of Omu.
History of Omu
In its glory days, Omu had been a Jewel of Chult built over rich mineral veins. Its legendary jewelry was coveted across the world, and its merchants grew fat on commerce and slave labor. But Omu’s wealth bred insatiable greed. Its rulers demanded ever greater slave tributes from neighbors, and when they could not pay in flesh, Omu’s feared legions made them pay in blood.
Omu’s greed and hubris enraged Ubtao, causing him to turn his back on the city long before he abandoned the rest of Chult. Without divine favor, Omu’s priests lost their powers overnight. Without Ubtao’s blessing, Omu fell swiftly. Disease ravaged the population, slave uprisings racked the city, and its nobles fled. Maps showing Omu’s location were destroyed, and Omu became known as the Forbidden City. With Ubtao gone, nine primal spirits rose from the rainforest to bewitch the remaining Omuans.
Disguised as jungle creatures, they promised great power in exchange for total devotion. Desperate for redemption, the Omuans tore down their temple to Ubtao and raised nine shrines to these trickster gods, not knowing they were trading divine wisdom for the manipulations of deceitful spirits. Too weak to grant miracles to all followers, the trickster gods devised deadly trials to winnow their clergy. These lethal tests became entertainment for the degenerate Omuans and fed their weakling gods with much needed sacrifices.
Acererak and the Tomb of the Nine Gods
The bloody trials of Omu drew the attention of Acererak, an archlich feared throughout the multiverse. Acererak wanders the cosmos in search of souls to harvest. His singular obsession is building elaborate death trap tombs. He fills each tomb with treasure to attract adventurers, then kill them off with deadly traps and monsters. The terror scars their souls, which he traps in his phylactery, the location of which is one of the multiverse’s greatest secrets.
Acererak marveled at the trials concocted by the Omuans. They inspired him to create his own dungeon below the city. He entered Omu, and with contemptuous ease, slew all nine trickster gods. He then enslaved the Omuans to build a tomb beneath their own city for their defeated gods. The Tomb of the Nine Gods became an elaborate death trap filled with deadly puzzles, monsters, and traps for adventurers to die within. When the tomb was complete, Acererak murdered every last Omuan and sealed them inside with their false gods. He departed to resume his odyssey across the planes, leaving his tomb to feed his phylactery with the souls of slain adventurers. The jungle reclaimed Omu completely. The Forbidden City fell into ruin and near total obscurity. Its dark secrets buried beneath centuries of tropical growth and forgotten history.
Yuan-ti, Serpentes and Sseth
Long before Omu’s rise, the Chultan Peninsula had known another ancient civilization. The Yuan-ti had built a powerful theocracy in the Mhair Jungles, worshiping Merrshaulk, a corrupted fragment of the World Serpent. The Yuan-ti nation eventually collapsed, but not before it had spread as far west as the Jungles of Chult. After the Yuan-ti nation’s collapse, Merrshaulk sank into a somnolent state. Yuan-ti are serpent folks who plot to supplant and dominate all other races. They have human-like forms with a variety of serpentine transformations.
The middle caste Yuan-ti malison has types one, two, and three, with various traits of snakes. The more a Yuan-ti’s form resemble a snake, the greater the esteem they hold among their kind. The snake-like Yuan-ti abomination are the highest caste, while the human-like Yuan-ti pureblood are the lowest caste. A charismatic Yuan-ti named Sseth emerged from Chult’s jungles, proclaiming himself the World Serpent’s reincarnated avatar. This monstrous Yuan-ti abomination had gargantuan wings, a variation never seen before or since.
Sseth forged the serpent empire of Serpentes, stretching from the Mhair Jungles to the Peaks of Flame, enslaving the emerging human cultures in between. The self-proclaimed God-king of serpents taught his priests the magical ritual to transform human slaves into lesser forms of Yuan-ti. Then, after centuries of leadership, Sseth vanished beneath the Peaks of Flame. Some say he was attempting to unleash Dendar the Night Serpent on an unsuspecting world. His kingdom of serpents quickly disintegrated after his disappearance.
Ras Nsi the Yuan-ti malison
Back in the present, a brood of Yuan-ti from the ruined city of Hisari slithered into Omu’s abandoned ruins, building a new temple for the Night Serpents coming. However, an earthquake killed their Yuan-ti abomination leader. Into this serpentine den came Ras Nsi. Stripped of his divine powers and consumed by bitterness, he declared himself an enemy of the world and threw his lot in with the Yuan-ti of Omu. Ras Nsi wormed his way into the Yuan-ti’s favor and underwent the ritual to transform into a Yuan-ti malison. As a Yuan-ti, Ras Nsi imposed his terrible will on the evil snake people and became their leader. Beneath Omu’s cracked streets, where the Yuan-ti had established the secret temple named the Fane of the Night Serpent, Ras Nsi and his new Yuan-ti followers began searching for a way to bring forth Dendar the Night Serpent.
Acererak and the Atropal
Far across the planes, on the edge of the Negative Plane, Acererak discovered an atropal, an unfinished stillborn godling. An idea formed in the archlich’s mind. What if he could nourish this unfinished godling to full divinity? Acererak chose one of his tombs, the Tomb of the Nine Gods on Toril, as the atropal’s nursery. He brought the atropal to Chult, ensconced it within the tomb’s depths and fed it necromantic energy to transform it into a deity of death.
Acererak approached Ras Nsi, promising to help release Dendar the Night Serpent, in exchange for the Yuan-ti defending the tomb while the atropal grew. Ras Nsi accepted and deployed the Yuan-ti guards, but doubts Acererak will honor the agreement. To feed the growing atropal, Acererak needed countless souls. He made a bargain with the Sewn Sisters, a coven of night hags feared throughout the Lower Planes. Seduced by the prospect of a near-endless supply of souls, the Sewn Sisters agreed to join Acererak in the tomb.
With the Sewn Sisters’ expertise in stitching soul bags, they crafted the Soulmonger. The Soulmonger reached across Toril like invisible tendrils of death, intercepting the souls of the dying before they can be resurrected or pass on to their rightful places. The souls are fed directly to the hungry atropal in the tomb. The effects were felt across the entire world. A terrible death curse spread from Chult, causing those who had previously been resurrected to waste away and die, their stolen souls feeding the growing atropal.
Satisfied with his work, Acererak abandoned the tomb, leaving the Sewn Sisters as nursemaids to the growing atropal. He departed to watch the rise of the death god from afar.
Port Nyanzaru and Jungles of Chult
Across the realms, words spread of the death curse. Those brave or desperate enough to seek answers arrives at Port Nyanzaru, the only remaining city in Chult, a vibrant city standing as a gateway to the Jungles of Chult. Beyond Port Nyanzaru lay the merciless Jungles of Chult, a world of dinosaurs, wild creatures, tropical diseases, roaming undead, Yuan-ti, ancient ruins, doomsday prophecy, divine abandonment and cosmic evil. And somewhere beyond mortal sight, Ubtao watches. The deceiver who became a guardian, who created a paradise and fragmented himself to fill it, waiting to see if his creation will find its own way through the maze.
